Sunday, September 8, 2013

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes season 2

Anyone who's been paying attention to this blog for a while knows I love superhero teams.  And yes, the big 2 are my favorites- The Justice League and the Avengers.  The Justice League has been treated well in the last few years (possibly my favorite cartoon series) but the last time the Avengers were animated it was a super friends style disaster.  Even the presence of my beloved Tigra in the cast didn't help matters at all.  Hated all that armor that was always present during that time period.  Really, did the Sub-mariner need armor?  That was like putting it on the Hulk.  Which they probably did.

As this blog noted, I really enjoyed this incarnation of animated Avengers.  They got most things right.  The second season did a lot of alien invasion stories, The Skrulls, the Kree and even Galactus all got to shine.  The voice acting is all  quite good, the cast has a good camaraderie with each other.

We also got to see a lot of extra heroes- Iron Fist, some guy called Power Man (I'm assuming it was Luke, he did exclaim "Sweet Christmas!" at one point (this is a joke, I know it was Cage)), Spider-man, Wolverine, the entire FF and some chick named Quake.  And of course,  my favorite, The Vision is introduced.  He's a pure robot in this version, no mention of his past.  I'm not surprised by this, and at some point the word "synthozoid" was used so that made me smile.  Ultron's bride is shown, but never comes to life.  I would like to have seen his phasing power done with a little more flair, he floated through things like a ghost.

Part of the problem with being a long time reader of comic books is that nothing really surprises me.  The heroes, the villains... I've already read it.  I knew the Red Skull was showing up and who he was before the big reveal.  Still, it was nice seeing these stories, they all did their job in being entertaining.

The few things I didn't like were The Winter Soldier (bad name, worse idea).  Don't like him being alive in the comics and he wasn't needed in the cartoon.  Spider-man being 17... ugh.  Kind of neat in concept, a rookie Spider-man learning as he goes, but when Tony tells JJJ that he's been slagging Spider-man for years and then Spidey reveals he's only 17... do the math. While I like Wolverine, he's just overused.  Even in the two episodes he was in I felt that way.  Might as well give him a utility belt and a cape.

Oh, and having the Avengers defeat Galactus.  Nice wrap up to the story, but in one episode? no Silver Surfer or his sacrifice?  It was cool to see them all team up together, but Galactus has always been an FF foe.  Interesting way they defeated him as well.

All in all, this is a show I'd watch again.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice write up. I've never watched it myself but now I want to. I enjoyed the x-men animated series from the 90's as with spiderman and batman but haven't really watched much Avengers or Justice League. I thought the Avengers film was awesome though

X7 said...

The cartoon is very much based on the movie, so you should enjoy it as well.